As charities call on the government to scrap a benefit rule which, they say, results in people under 25 being evicted from their homes, one man tells how the single room rent restriction meant he was forced out of his home.

Mark Wolse, 22, was working as a building site labourer and living in a £65-a-week bedsit when he was diagnosed with depression.

The illness resulted in him taking five months off work and losing his job, which he had secured through an employment agency.

He began receiving welfare payments, including £50-a-week housing benefit, and eventually began searching for full-time employment.

The single room rent restriction meant he was not entitled to receive a payment to cover the full rent he was being charged for his bedsit in Dartford, Kent.

The rule limits the amount of housing benefit for people under the age of 25 to the average local rent for shared accommodation.

But Mark says the £15-a-week shortfall between his rent and housing benefit resulted in him falling behind in his rent payments.

Homeless fear

After a year he had accrued a debt running into hundreds of pounds and his landlord began threatening him with eviction.

"It was not a good time because no-one wants to lose their home," he said.

"I simply could not afford to keep up the payments and the debt just started mounting up.

"My dad had helped me move into the bedsit by giving me money for the deposit and I didn't want to leave.

"But I could not get any more money in benefit to cover the rent. You fear you are going to be homeless."

I feel discriminated against because had I been over 25 I would have received more housing benefit and been able to stay in my own place